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This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Valerie Saunderson. And in the early hours of Saturday, the 26th of September, these are our main stories. Reports say President Trump has chosen a federal judge, Amy CONI Barrett, for the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The United States has now had more than seven million coronavirus cases, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. Police in Paris have arrested seven people suspected of involvement in an attack in the former offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Also in this podcast, this is Robert.

Always start listening in the morning and I throughout all the afternoon and evening.

So how is Robert from Malawi coping with the restrictions of the covid-19 pandemic? Find out later.

There were solemn scenes in Washington on Friday as the former Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, became the first woman to lie in state in the Capitol building. Speaking at a memorial service, Rabbi Lauren Splatt said she'd been a tenacious and determined defender of people's rights.

Pursuing justice took resilience, persistence, a commitment to never stop. As a lawyer, she won equality for women and men, not in one swift victory, but brick by brick, case by case through meticulous, careful lawyering, President Trump said he'd reveal on Saturday the name of the woman he wants to replace her.

And just before we recorded this podcast, US media reports suggested that name had already leaked.

I had more from our correspondent David Willis, who's in Washington, our partner network here in the US by CBS News. And other networks are reporting that the federal judge, Amy CONI Barrett, is expected to be named by President Trump as his pick to succeed the liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And Amy CONI Barrett is a mother of seven, including two children adopted from Haiti. She is a devout Roman Catholic, a former law professor, and she would be the youngest justice on the Supreme Court bench at the age of 48 years old.

That's assuming that her nomination is approved by the US Senate, which has every indication it will be. Amy CONI Barrett met with Donald Trump earlier this week at the White House.

And as I mentioned, Mr. Trump is expected to formally announce his choice at a news conference and explain why this is such an important appointment.

Well, it's very significant for a number of reasons. Amy CONI Barrett would replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an unequivocal supporter of abortion rights, with someone who is opposed to them, as Barrett has gone on record as saying that she regards abortion as immoral. And during her time on the Court of Appeals to which she was appointed by Donald Trump, she has ruled on two abortion related cases, both times favoring restrictions on abortions. But the choice is significant for another reason, because this gives the highest court in the land a conservative majority, possibly for decades to come.

And because among the issues that the court is expected to have to weigh in on imminently, as well as abortion rights and universal health care, are quite possibly the outcome of the forthcoming US presidential election, which President Trump has refused to commit to accepting the outcome of should he lose. And it's highly likely that the election outcome, if contested, could then head to the Supreme Court for a decision. David Willis.

Well, the United States has now had more than seven million coronavirus cases, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University. Steve Jackson reports.

The seven million figure is for coronavirus cases confirmed by tests, although comparisons between countries can be misleading because the United States has done more testing than some other nations. The US remains, by this measure, the worst affected country in the world. While Americans make up just four percent of the global population, the US has had more than 20 percent of coronavirus cases. It's another unwelcome landmark for Donald Trump just over five weeks before the presidential election. He was heavily criticized earlier this week for describing the deaths of 200000 Americans as a shame.

Steve Jackson. Well, much of the world is once again falling into the grip of the coronavirus in Israel, which last week became the first developed country to reimpose a lockdown on Friday, tightened the new restrictions. Still further numbers are rising and new restrictions are coming in to here in Britain, in Spain and in France. Paris has declared a zone of heightened alert and postponed 20 percent of surgical operations because hospitals are already nearly full. There are also fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections in Russia.

I got more details from Vitaly Shevchenko from BBC Monitary.

Today, Russia reported really high numbers of new infections, 7200, which is the highest number in three months. And Moscow seems to be worst affected in one week. The number of hospital admissions with covid jumped by 30 percent. But if you listen to the Russian media, there's no second way. In fact, they insist that it's the West that's being submerged by a second wave. And this message that Russia is doing really well, it's got this miracle vaccine against the virus while the West is suffering.

It's not really helping the fight against coronavirus. I've been talking to my colleagues in Moscow and they're saying that covid fatigue is firmly set in, even though people are supposed to wear face masks on public transport and in shops they're supposed to be.

Observing, social distancing, not everyone does that sometimes get on the bus and very few people wear face masks and that kind of meta message is not really helping.

The mayor of Moscow, though. He has introduced new lockdown measures, hasn't he? What form are they taking?

Well, Macedonian suggested, Dannion, all this time, all these months, he has been seen as the leading force in the fight against the virus.

And sometimes he's sort of even overshadowed President Vladimir Putin himself. So this morning, Sergei Sebastian wrote in his personal blog to say that he is urging over 65 to stay at home.

And he said that employers should make sure that their staff are moved back to working from home. And that's that's the sort of a U-turn.

And it's couched in advisory terms. It's not a must. It's a and later on today, he clarified that, well, for now, nobody is going to be fine for going outside and, you know, taking a walk and exercising.

But there's talk in the media and a lot of unnamed sources being quoted as saying that the authorities are really concerned and they are thinking of reintroducing firm lockdown measures.

Vitaly Shevchenko, five years ago, two brothers with links to the Islamist militant group al Qaeda forced their way into the office of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris and killed 12 people. Their motive, revenge. After the magazine published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on Friday, two people were attacked outside the same building. They both been seriously injured. A passer by Mohammed Zaidee, described the scene.

She doesn't want to do much. I saw one or two people running, but that was the way I was going. So I kept going. And there at the foot of the metro, I saw a machete with lots of blood and I saw people shouting. It was a bit of a panic to go to my office. I took the passageway that's right next to my work, and there I saw a victim covered in blood. That's when I panicked.

And then people started panicking and shouting. And I went to my work to warn my colleagues to lock themselves in. And the police arrived at that point and asked us to stay locked up.

Police have arrested seven people. Five of them were detained during a search at the home of the prime suspect who's reportedly a Pakistani teenager. Gillian Worricker spoke to Paul Moreira, a journalist and documentary filmmaker from Premier Linnear Media Production Company, which has offices in the building at the scene of Friday's attack. Some people may find the following interview disturbing.

What happens is that late morning, two people from our crew, a woman and a man, went down to smoke a cigarette and then they were attacked. They were in front of the building and they were attacked by a young man with an axe, usually with something that is used by the butcher to cut meat. And they were attacked. The lady the girl was attacked, the head faced with the axe. And the boy was the attacker was aiming for the neck, but he could protect himself with this firearm.

Therefore, he saved his life. He could run away with some blood, but we were able to stabilize him and then they were taken away to a hospital. Their lives don't seem to be in danger for now.

How much of this did you witness yourself? I came 10 minutes after the guy went away, so I was not there at the moment where it happened. I arrived before the police at the agency. Everyone was very shocked because it's basically the second terrorist attack we have suffered. It's the building of Charlie Hebdo. And in 2015, we were there when the when the Kouachi brothers attacked Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 people. I believe the fact that the trial was taking place now has something to do with the attacks against the building has been shown on TV quite a lot.

Every day, every day you would see the building with the big painting, with the Charlie Hebdo crew painted on the building. And I believe the young man who decided to attack us was more like attacking the symbol of Charlie Hebdo through attacking people who were working on the building.

You mentioned the trial, as you say, 14 people. A trial has begun. People accused of being accomplices in that attack. You refer to back in January 2015 when 12 people were killed.

Has the building become more secure? Have measures been taken since 2015 to try and stop a repeat of that?

No. After the attack on Charlie Hebdo in 2015 had policemen protecting us for three months and then they went away. And they have come back. We saw the. Secretary of Interior, the policemen, number one, the French government gave us an appointment for next week to organize the protection of the building that has become like a symbolic target for terrorists in France because of what it represents in in terms of free speech.

Is that what strikes you as you think about this? No.

Yes, absolutely. I mean, the building is painted over with symbols of relating to free speech and also caricatures of the prophet. And that makes them also as a target for fanatics and I think do like nobody knows where they moved for security reasons. So when fanatics want to, like, attack symbolically, something that looks as close as Charlie Hebdo as possible, they would attack us because we basically share the same values of freedom of speech. And we are a soft target.

We're easy to get. We hope that we not remain a soft target after this, this incredible attack we have suffered.

The French journalist and documentary filmmaker Paul Moreira, a court in Oslo has ruled that a Palestinian born man can be extradited to France to face trial on charges of killing six people at a restaurant in the Jewish quarter of Paris 38 years ago. French investigators suspect that Walid Abdul Rahman Abuzaid threw a grenade into the Joe Goldenberg restaurant and then opened fire. Mike Saunders is our Europe editor.

This notorious case went cold for more than 30 years. Suspicion long ago fell on the Palestinian splinter group led by Abu Nidal. But it wasn't until French judges accepted anonymous testimony from two former militants that names emerged. Two suspects are in the Middle East beyond French judicial reach. Walid Zyad, a Norwegian citizen, denies involvement and can appeal. The final decision rests with a Norwegian cabinet, Mike Sanders.

And now to the world of the Internet and the safety issues that could affect us all. The head of the European Union's cyber security division has told the BBC that governments should consider making company bosses liable if workers are killed as a consequence of cyber attacks that could have been prevented. So what are the areas where human lives are most at risk and what's being done to protect us? Our cyber reporter Joe Tidey has been finding out. When you think of how cyber attacks affect you, you probably imagine your social media account being hacked or your bank details stolen, but they can be a whole lot worse.

German police have now launched the world's first homicide case where hackers could be to blame. It comes after a cyber attack took a hospital in Dusseldorf offline. A woman needing urgent care died whilst being transferred to another facility 30 kilometres away. Attacks on health care facilities in particular research centers have increased since the start of the pandemic. But there are actually more worrying areas where the fear of hackers killing is increasing.

We've come to a metalworks plant in Germany to speak to a cybersecurity expert about a mysterious attack on a steel mill somewhere in the country in 2014.

These are still rebels from trucks.

Matthias Meyer is from cybersecurity company Splunk.

The cyber attackers hacked the network through their office computers. They jumped into the production environment, went into the blast furnace. They created unscheduled uncontrolled shutdown.

And the government reports described it as devastating physical damage. That is very unusual in a cyber attack, isn't it?

Yes, it is, as of today. But the more and more is digitalized in a smart factory, the higher the risk that this becomes the normal in cybersecurity.

Multiple manufacturers have been forced to shut down workshops in the last few years, but only once before has physical damage actually been caused in 2012 as famous Stuxnet attack on Iran. So what can be done to make sure that companies are doing everything they can to protect workers from cyber attacks? The executive director of the EU Cyber Security Division, Ewan Labasa, thinks governments in Europe and beyond should consider new laws.

I think it's very important that company leaders take cyber security extremely seriously. And I would also encourage policymakers to think about what is the liability of CEO of a company to ensure that the systems or services are so secure because in the Worst-Case scenario might have consequences on human life.

Other critical parts of modern life, like transport and power, are also routinely being probed for weaknesses, often by rival governments. Ukraine was hit by suspected Russian hackers in 2015 and 2016. The power cuts meant that lights went out for hundreds of thousands of people. Marina Kreutzfeld was one of the cyber security experts sent to help.

Oh, I was extremely angry. I was I mean, first of all, it is my mother airland clearly. Secondly, actually, somebody intentionally attacked critical infrastructures, which is vital to the well-being and health of the civilian population.

Overall, the risk of a deadly cyber attack remains low, but the events of recent years all point in the same troubling direction. The cyber world is increasingly impacting us physically.

That report by Joe Tidey.

Still to come, Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is just around an hour's drive away from where I am, are the only two countries yet to eradicate wild polio.

A new national polio vaccination campaign is underway in Pakistan, the first since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. But the uptake is being hampered by suspicion and conspiracy theories. A senior Roman Catholic cardinal ordered to resign by the pope has protested against the way he was dismissed and rejected the accusations against him. Giovanni Angelo Bachu said he'd pleaded with Pope Francis not to force him to go. As he put it, in front of the whole world is sentimentally grandiose.

Of that ends the feeling is of great suffering, clearly great suffering. But, you know, suffering for us priests and even cardinals is never lacking. Now, I have this trial, I take it as a trial, and I hope it will be clarified sooner or later.

I accept it at the trial and I offer it for the church and for the pope.

But last year, our Rome correspondent Mark Lowen told us more.

It's extremely rare, though, for a cardinal to be dismissed and indeed stripped of his rights to to participate in the next conclave, which is to choose the next pope. This is a really kind of a sort of slightly sort of cloak and dagger moment in terms of the choreography about how all this happened, full of the sort of intrigue and factionalism that often seems to cloak the Vatican. It started on Thursday evening with a very rare evening statement from the Vatican saying that the pope had accepted the resignation of Cardinal Bachu, a very senior cardinal, formerly deputy secretary of state, that who had unfettered access to the pope, latterly in charge of the department, choosing who would be elevated to sainthood.

And it was just a terse one line statement. And then today we've had this press conference from the cardinal in which he talks more about the meeting with the pope. It seems he was dismissed because of alleged financial misdeeds. We know that he was involved in managing the controversial purchase of a 200 million euro property in London with church funds. But he was, we understand, sacked by the pope eventually for siphoning off money, allegedly to businesses run by his brothers, including one which was a carpentry business run by brother, used to renovate the Holy See embassy in Cuba and another brother running a charitable organization.

But he said in his press conference today that he had done nothing wrong, no crimes committed. And it seems foul that Cardinal Bachu is not going to go quietly.

And what happens next? Because the cardinal is saying, isn't he, that he hopes the allegations will be cleared up soon. Does that suggest he might go to court?

There is an investigation ongoing. We know that some Italians have been at the center of that investigation, too. So this is a widespread criminal investigation. Now, there could be a trial and we simply don't know. He has continued to plead his innocence. He said he will remain pledge to remain faithful and loyal to the pope. But the fact that he held this extraordinary press conference right next to, you know, where he was sacked by the pope suggests that he could emerge as a thorn in the side of Pope Francis.

And it once again shows the sort of disharmony, disunity at the height of the of the Catholic Church might loan the West African regional group, the economic community of West African states are echoes have announced they won't lift the sanctions they imposed on Mali until a civilian prime minister is appointed. The announcement came shortly after Bandar was sworn in as the country's new president, five weeks after the overthrow of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the former defense minister was hand-picked by the coup leader to head a transitional government until the next elections.

I spoke to our Africa regional editor, Bill Ross, and asked him what we know of this new president.

Varnedoe was a helicopter pilot in the Air Force and had a long career in the Malian military. Having initially been trained in the Soviet Union and in France, he briefly held the position of minister of defense under the former president. That was back in 2014. And then apparently there was a fall out with the president over reintegrating deserters into the army, an imposing figure standing at six foot four. And in his speech after being sworn in, he talked about tackling corruption and electoral fraud.

Now, he was chosen really because the military who seized power five weeks ago, those military rulers were forced under pressure from the international community, especially ACOSS and the African Union, to appoint a civilian. And that civilian obviously could be a retired military person, but probably somebody who's known to those military leaders who clearly would have preferred to have stayed on in charge of the country on their own. So he was chosen, I guess, as a kind of safe person.

I'm sure they. I know him pretty well, but obviously the big question is whether the new president will really be in charge or will his vice president, Colonel Azimi, goitre, who was the coup leader or whether he will really be pulling the strings?

And how effective are the sanctions? I mean, I presume this is all about making elections a possibility in the near future.

Yes. Well, the idea was to put pressure on those military leaders to ensure that there is a relatively speedy transition. There are supposed to be elections in 18 months time, the sanctions themselves. The fear was that obviously they were going to hurt ordinary Malians far more than the military people who were supposed to be being punished for seizing power. But because Mali is tied in with the monetary union in West Africa, the CFA franc, the Dakar based Central Bank of of of the monetary union, had imposed financial sanctions and basically had cut Mali off from the community.

And that led to less trade with neighbors and a big problem with imports coming in. And it was affecting agriculture already.

So the pressure was on, whereas a new national polio vaccination campaign is underway in Pakistan, the first since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world which still haven't eliminated wild polio and is polio, which occurs naturally after Nigeria was declared free from the disease last month. Efforts by health workers in Pakistan have been hampered not only by covid-19 but also by conspiracy theories. Secunda Kamani reports from Porscha.

Polio campaigns were suspended in March because of the pandemic, with workers like Mediha reassigned to help with contact tracing. Now they're starting up again.

In August, we did our first local campaign after coronavirus. We were afraid of getting infected and Sauveur the public. A lot of people refused, but now it's much better.

When a rundown parts of Peshawar, piles of rubbish on the street, an open sewage polio is transmitted through fecal matter with the poverty and living conditions here. It's easy to see how that could happen. Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is just around an hour's drive away from where I am, the only two countries yet to eradicate wild polio. And even before coronavirus things here weren't going to plan with a spike in cases over the past two years, just as it seemed as if real progress was being made.

I can only. Conspiracy theories about the vaccine have become a major challenge, often spreading on WhatsApp or social media in one viral video from last year. A man stands in what looks like a hospital ward surrounded by children who fall down as soon as the recording starts. They became like this after receiving the vaccine, he says breathlessly.

It's so obviously fake, it's laughable, but it had serious consequences. In response, a mob tore down a health clinic outside Peshawar.

You are hardly old enough to combat the rumors.

Officials have turned to community mobilizers like Fethullah Akhundzada, an elderly retired teacher and religious cleric with a white beard and kindly expression for the way some people think the vaccine will make their children steerer.

Some say it's a foreign conspiracy, but we are convinced and show them rulings by religious scholars saying it's not harmful, it's just medicine.

Hardly anyone ever says no, because people here respect the idea that for other children, it's already too late. Though four year old Naseer sits forlornly on a cushion on the floor. His grandfather, a migrant from Afghanistan, picks up the child's arms and lets them fall limply. He's been left almost completely paralyzed. A few months ago, he was fine, says Daleman. He would run around so fast his mother couldn't even catch him. But even now, there's a degree of skepticism.

I don't know if it's polio or not, he adds. If I ask a mullah, he'll tell me all doctors are liars and the mullah will blow a prayer over him and say it will go away. If I go to a doctor, he'll say, it's polio. I don't know who's lying.

We leave the family as Kefraya Tullah, the cleric starts to explain the disease to them outside on the street, the vaccination teams are still going door to door and Pakistan's fight against polio goes on.

Secunda Khamenei, the brother of the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, has rejected claims by a nephew that a plastic bag stashed with eight million dollars had been found in a wall of his flat in the city of Medellin. The United Russia has more details.

Pablo Escobar senior Nicolas told Colombian media on Thursday that Avision had led him to the exact spot where the cash had been hidden. His uncle, Roberto Escobar, accused him of lying. He said that he was the one who lived in the apartment for many years, not his nephew. The apartment was one of many properties that once belonged to the drug lords and that were inherited by his family after he was killed nearly 30 years ago. The discovery of the money has reopened the debate about the wealth of the Escobar family.

Many believe the money should be seized by the Colombian state Leonida Russia.

Now, over the last few months, we've heard lots of stories of how people have been managing their time during the coronavirus pandemic. Many people have been very creative. The program here on the BBC World Service received a WhatsApp message from a listener in Malawi who's composed a song about covid-19.

BBC s This is Robert, a BBC reliable listener. Always start listening BBC in the morning and I continue throughout all the afternoon and evening at night. I begin again from eight pm to 10 PM. At midnight, sometimes if it happens that I wake up for a reason, I always make sure first I tune in before I continue with my sleep. My listening routine always makes my friend laughing and happy as well, because even when I'm at the table eating, the BBC is always on.

Now, guess what? With the help of some of the information that I've been collecting from the coverages of BBC on the corner virus, I've managed to record a trick on awareness about the virus.

And I request you to play it as my part of on the organised campaign. Violence is real. Car rental cars came and can still kill or they make rules, obey the rules and the regulations. Look forward to it. Some guy you barely heard regularly from the fashion. So these of some will settle for trouble. We played it, Robert, and that's it from us for now, if you want to comment on this podcast, the email address is Global Podcast at BBC, Dakoda, U.K..

I'm Valerie Sanderson.

The studio manager is Simonon, the producer Leah McAffrey, and the editor is Karen Martin.

I'll leave you with more from Robert and until next time for my.

Shaking hands and.